I've played DF since just before the massive z-level update (2008?) - I was living in a girl's college dorm with my girlfriend and her roommate's boyfriend that was living there turned me onto DF and Fallout, etc.
DF has been the one thing I have turned to over the years as a therapeutic device when I'm in deep depression and meds/therapy doesn't feel like it's doing it: the function of procgen obscurity, guided freedom of choice, and even the simple repetitive mundane nature of it that doesn't feel like it (even the looped guitar track) helps me really get through some dark days.
I'm worried seeing the steam updates like Tarn is begrudgingly making UX/UI changes for "the people in our community that can't handle ASCII" when he is obviously NOT a UX/UI guy (evidenced by the product of DF itself). The textbox styling look like he's just adding bland graphics as #goodenough.
If they patreon'd a $100/month tier where I could support a team to help translate his brilliant spaghetti into clean, streamlined frictive processes (militia workflow having broken defaults, navigation, etc), and maybe even some devs to optimize his legacy code so embark can handle larger complex sites and maybe CO-OP (come on I can dream). So much of the flow has always felt like I have to do this because this is how it is done in DF.
tldr: I am worried Tarn is not a UX guy, begrudgingly building UX for DF, when he (and WE) are missing out on a massive opportunity to build something with less friction and more [FUN].